A SURVEY OF LABOR MIGRATION BETWEEN STATES By N. A. TOLLES, of the Bureau of Labor Statistics A CONTRADICTION between the existing need for a free movement of workers and the widespread discrimination against the worker who migrates is revealed by a recent survey of the Department of Labor. The Secretary of Labor has recently submitted the findings of this survey to the Congress, in response to a Senate resolution. Information as to the migration of workers within the United States is exceedingly fragmentary. The lack of any special appropriation for investigating this complex subject prevented the collection of sufficient data to warrant specific recommendations at this time. However, the studies of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Children's Bureau were sufficient to show some of the national economic problems which give rise to migration, the distress of large numbers of migrant workers, and the acute problem of the communities with which migrants come into contact. Social Problems The living conditions of migrants, as observed recently by representatives of the Children's Bureau in visits to a number of communities, have been characterized by the Secretary of Labor as "a threat to the development of good citizens." These conditions are accentuated by the prejudice of local communities against migrant workers. The extreme unwillingness of some communities to assimilate the migrant is evidenced most strikingly by border controls of doubtful legality and by fitful campaigns to enforce strictly the local vagrancy ordinances. It is also reflected in the difficulty experienced by relief authorities in obtaining funds for the relief of migrants who are in need. The living facilities of most migrant workers were found to be deplorable and in many cases they were shocking. Families with as many as six children were seen traveling in old cars and trucks, with all their household goods, sleeping at night by the roadside, in squatter camps, or crowded into cheap one- and two-room cabins in tourist camps. Unattached men characteristically hitched rides on railways or highways and slept in "jungle" camps or in the congregate shelters maintained by relief agencies. Occasionally, labor camps were provided for migrant agricultural workers, but even these were frequently crowded, inadequately equipped, and insanitary. The Children's Bureau found that the migrant worker suffers in comparison with the resident as regards health protection and educational opportunities. The lack of medical care and health protection is a menace to the communities which receive migrants as well as to the workers themselves. The ordinary health services of the community are seldom available to persons without legal residence except in extreme emergencies, and even then such aid sometimes comes too late. Few communities attempt to control venereal and other infectious diseases among the migrants. The children of thousands of migrant families, particularly among migrant agricultural workers, have few or no educational opportunities. Extreme economic pressure upon the family, the difficulty of adjusting school work to brief stops in different communities, and the indifference of some school authorities, appear to be responsible for this condition. Children old enough to go to work in the fields are expected to do so. Younger children are not enrolled because it does not seem worth while to their parents during a short stay. All children of migrant families are overlooked by some school authorities, who are frequently lax in enforcing the school-attendance laws in such cases. Public relief is granted in most communities only to those persons who have legal settlement. The periods of local residence required to gain settlement, and the periods of absence before settlement is lost, are utterly unstandardized. As a result of this lack of uniformity in settlement laws and of the long periods required to obtain settlement in some States and local districts, many workers lose settlement in one place before acquiring it in any other. No community will acknowledge responsibility for such persons, although they may have lost settlement in the attempt to find employment, to follow the job, or to move where they believed there would be a better demand for their labor. Persons in need but without settlement were admitted to relief under the Federal transient program from 1933 until September 1935. Since the liquidation of this program, relief for migrants has been sharply restricted. Such local relief as is available has been generally limited to families with young children, to unattached women, and to the sick and aged. The attempts of both public and private relief agencies to discourage migrants from applying for assistance make it impossible to know even how many are now in need. Even under the recent laws to provide for the security of workers, the interstate migrant is in danger of facing discrimination. While the system of outright grants under the Social Security Act has somewhat relaxed the residence conditions of public assistance based on Federal aid, the worker who moves between States is likely to find himself at a disadvantage in respect to all other features of the social-security laws. Agriculture, which probably employs the majority of these workers who must move continually, is outside the scope of both the old-age and the unemployment protection of the act. Seasonal workers, even when employed in industrial work, are inadequately covered in most of the State unemployment-compensation laws. All workers now stand to lose whatever right to unemployment compensation they may have accumulated if they migrate from one State to another, unless special arrangements to cover such cases are successfully established by future interstate agreements. In order to attack this distress among migrants and this discrimination against the migrant, it is important to know who the migrants are, why they migrate, approximately how many there are, and how successful they are in obtaining remunerative employment. These subjects were the chief concern of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in preparing material for the Secretary's report, and they are the chief concern of this article. The Bureau's analysis was necessarily based largely on data already assembled, supplemented by such inquiries as could be made under limited, regular appropriations. In accordance with the terms of the Senate resolution the emphasis of the Secretary's report was upon workers who migrate across State lines. It should be noticed, however, that workers who move within their respective States migrate for similar reasons and often share the same conditions as those who happen to cross a State border. Characteristics of Migrants No single type of person can be found who is typical of migrants generally. Workers of all races and all ages, whether single or married, become migrants when movement is necessary to find work or to regain health. Certainly the popular picture of the "hobo"-a foreign, single, irresponsible, unemployable drifter is not characteristic of the mass of migrants today. Indeed, the available evidence suggests that an increasing proportion of the workers who move from State to State are native white Americans, members of families, relatively young, and highly employable. The virtual disappearance of immigration from abroad, reflected in a decline from an average of 430,000 admissions per year in the 1920's to less than 36,000 in each year of the 1930's, has made it inevitable that the burdens of migration should be borne by native workers. More than 94 percent of the migrants who received aid under the Federal transient program, 1934-35, were native-born persons. Although Mexicans predominated until recently among the migrant workers of the far West, nearly nine-tenths of the 87,302 migrant workers actually counted as they entered California during the year, 1935-36, were white persons. For the present, at least, the northward migration of the Negro is also of much less importance than during the 1920's. An indication of this latter trend is furnished by a recent analysis of registrations at the public employment offices in Chicago, a city well situated to reflect the trend of Negro migration. While Negroes comprised 31.4 percent of the Chicago immigrants studied who arrived in the 1920's, they comprised only 21.5 percent of those who arrived in the years 1934 to 1936. Most of the migrants are still probably unattached men. Migration is easier for single men than for women, minors, or family groups, because the single man lacks the social ties and responsibilities of these other persons. However, the migrant family is of increasing importance. One-third of the most recent group of migrant workers whose employment-office records were studied in Chicago were married, nearly one-half had dependents, and more than one-quarter had two or more dependents. Although formerly nearly all of the seasonal migrants in agriculture were single men, a large proportion of such workers in Florida, and nearly all of those who have been counted recently at the California border, were members of family groups. The common picture of the migrant as an unemployable drifter appears to be the result of sheer provincial prejudice. Repeated studies of the Bureau of Labor Statistics have shown that the ages of greatest employability range approximately from 21 to 45 years.2 While about 40 percent of the working population of the United States in 1930 fell outside these age limits, less than 30 percent of the migrants aided by the Federal transient bureaus and less than 22 percent of the Chicago immigrants since 1922 who registered at the public employment offices were under 21 or over 45. Moreover, there is positive evidence as to the employability of workers who migrate across State lines. Nine-tenths of the relief cases under the Federal transient program were judged to be capable and willing workers, and under the final test of ability to obtain jobs in private industry the migrant workers appear superior to resident workers. So far the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been able to analyze partially the material from the public employment offices of only 1 city out of the 20 1 Monthly Labor Review for December 1936 (p. siderably more than half of this older group had been 1362). Nativity was not reported. 2 See Monthly Labor Review for November 1932 (pp. 1009-1010), and February 1937 (p. 325); U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bull. No. 620 (p. 37), and Bull. No. 623 (p. 87). An exception was found in the department stores of Springfield, Mass., where Dr. Hewes revealed that from one-fifth to one-fourth of the employees were over 45 years of age. Con hired before they reached the age of 45 years, but since the largest number of them had been hired at ages from 40 to 44, it was concluded that there was "abundant evidence of lack of prejudice on the part of retail store managers against the hiring of older persons." (Monthly Labor Review for October. 1932, pp. 774-778.) centers from which information was collected for the Secretary's report. In Chicago, private placements were secured for 24 percent of the migrants of 1934-36, as compared with nonrelief placements of only 7 percent of the earlier migrants who had established residence in Chicago. Among both the single and the married job seekers and among job seekers of all age groups, the recent migrants in Chicago secured jobs in private industry through the employment offices more frequently than did the earlier migrants who had established residence. So great was the preference for residents in assignments to relief work, however, that only 33 percent of the recent migrants to that city (1934-36) secured any kind of placement, as against 41 percent of the former migrants who had established residence. Types and Numbers of Migrants Migration is a normal process of adjustment to changes in economic opportunities. The causes of migration are so fundamental and pervasive as to leave little hope that workers may be completely immobilized and little justification for discrimination against the migrants themselves. A consideration of these causes also suggests the need for restoration of stranded communities, for regularization of employment, and for intelligent direction of the necessary movement. Although each case of migration is, in some respects, unique, there remain two broad reasons for movement and two corresponding types of migrant workers: (1) Major economic changes, such as industrialization, drought, and depression, which displace workers in certain areas and force their relocation in other parts of the country. The workers who move in response to such fundamental shifts in opportunity may be called "removal migrants." (2) Seasonal and irregular fluctuations in the local demands for labor in agriculture or industry, which require many workers in certain seasons but fewer workers in the same area at other times of the year. The workers who move once or more each year may be called "constant migrants." The relocation of removal migrants from one State to another affects more workers than does continual migration. No basis exists for an accurate estimate of the number of migrants, but census data suggest that more than 9 million persons moved across State lines at least once during the decade 1920-30. Of these, 4.3 millions were immigrants from abroad and more than 4.6 millions were domestic migrants. The annual number of domestic migrants increased during the depression. One indication of this increase is the increasing number of accidents to trespassers on the railways. More adequate local relief since 1932 has tended to stabilize the population, and to induce some migrants to return home rather than to continue their |